The glimmering, this one young, keen, a force, an energy that does not have a body and requires that of a human form to make its presence known, looks over and says, tell me again what it means to be human?
Imagine, they are told, a pair of hands capable of holding a found stone, its tender heaviness a reminder of the infinite space from which you came and the gentle threads of gravity that hold you to the earth.
Imagine living so fully that the map of your travels tells its stories through the lines on your face. The cartography of the land you’ve travelled showing up in tears that have pooled as lakes at your feet over the course of your years, tracks you’ve have walked, secrets you’ve whispered, laughter you’ve shared to the point where the breath escaped your body leaving nothing but a gasp, a silent love letter lingering in the air, before the next peal of happiness can escape .
Imagine, if you will, bellybutton fluff, of brushing your eyelashes on the cheek of another and naming it after kisses of a butterfly.
Imagine, walking, bending down, picking up a leaf that caressed the ground as it fell, holding it between your forefinger and thumb, and rubbing it gently until it releases the magic of its perfume like you’ve rubbed the genie right out of the bottle.
Imagine noticing freckles for the first time, delighting in the difference of someone with skin colour a different shade to your own, falling over together both at once to graze your knees on a rock and realising the blood you shed was the same.
Imagine when you stub your toe being legally obliged to blame the closest person next to you as the reason for your pain, even if they are in the next room over. Imagine having a bone called your funny bone, with the experience of knocking it being about the most unfunny thing you can think of. Imagine how confusing that must be.
Imagine your insides split open to make space for something that defies the logical shape and dimensions to follow the allotted exit route, who takes your organs and sets fire to them, pulls and tears at your muscles until they’re left like overstretched elastic, the noises made unrecognisable as your own, only for a baby to be born and have all signs of pain instantly forgiven.
Imagine a heartache so strong you wonder where you fit, if you are made for this world, if this place where you rest your head wants you, so consumed with doubt and sorrow and grief that you didn’t hear the grass, the trees, the muddy, sodden earth that shouted back, when you screamed to the hills, asking if anyone loved you, we said yes, we said yes, we said yes.
Imagine, in the presence of fear, lungs that wrap around the heart in a protective hug, a rib cage that braces and demands to the world, come no closer, the toll bridge closing its gates at the pelvis to trap blood in the legs, sending messages of love all the way to the toes, you must run, words of power to the hands, you must fight, a full body survival memo scribbled on every cell and passed around by the messenger of your blood, please, you must live.
The glimmering paused, thoughtful and said, tell me again what I must do.
And they were told,
You are the very specific yellow of midwinter light that make the eyes feel like their being whispered intimate secrets of the world.
You’re the taking off of shoes, skin on bare wet ground, the tingle of realisation sprinting its way to the heart, shouting finally, we understand, there is no need for pilgrimage, the ground on which we rest is already holy.
You are fingers reaching out, unpicking the bumble bee from the web, carrying them gently outside to rest in a shaft of sun, smiling with the need of the gentle creature that you were able to fulfil, but realising all at once it will never be as much as you needed them in return.
You are just the right amount of darkness to find your shadow in the moon, the feeling of someone lost standing next to you and giving you a hug, the sheer curtain between the world in which you stand and the next one over, thin as a moth wing, the keening breeze and the taste of salt from the spray of the surf a magic carpet ride that carries you right through.
You are the finding of people, of things, of places who make their dance on your insides, the holding of your heart in a way that reminds you it is worth being held, the mementoes, the clues, the reminders from people before, leaving tokens on the land to say, stop here, pay attention, this is a place that will hold you if you let it.
You are the sights, the feelings, the sounds, that crack your heart open like a sun baked seed, the liminal spaces where there is no need to put your ear to the ground, you’re desire the only requirement needed to hear the land talking right back.
These, they are told, are the glimmerings.
The glimmering paused once more and said, tell me again about the funny bone.
